Voters in Fort Bend County started reporting the issue Tuesday afternoon.
FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas — There were problems at the polls on Tuesday, according to the Fort Bend County elections administrator.
KHOU 11 News started receiving calls from several people saying the voting machines were down at multiple locations. We got hold of administrator Chase Wilson, who confirmed that someone in the country uploaded a bad file that essentially impacted voters who were trying to check in. He said the problem started a little after 3:30 p.m.
Wilson said it affected all voting in the county. A fix is being put in place, but there’s no real timetable for when it’ll be back up. Some voters will be restored before others. Most polling locations are providing provisional ballots to voters who wish to use them.
Election administrators don’t believe it was anything malicious, and votes cast before the issue were fine.
Wilson said, at this point, it’s not clear if voting hours in Fort Bend County will be extended, but it is an option.
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One voter said he tried to vote at Hightower High School but was told that the “machines are down countywide.”
Another voter said they were at the Missouri City Baptist Church to vote when they were told the same thing.
Rep. Christian Menefee issued a statement regarding the issues. He said the voting machines had been down since at least 3:15 p.m., and it wasn’t clear when they would be fixed.
He said Fort Bend County officials confirmed the outages and asked that voters cast a provisional ballot and that the county extend polling hours.
“To every voter in Fort Bend County: please still go vote. Officials are working to fix this as quickly as possible. In the meantime, eligible voters may cast a provisional ballot. Your vote matters, and we want you to cast it,” Menefee said. “Fort Bend County officials must do what is necessary to extend poll hours tonight. Voters should not lose a single minute of their right to vote because of a technical failure outside of their control. The right to vote is too important to shortchange anyone.”
KHOU 11 News reached out to Fort Bend County officials and is waiting to hear back about what’s going on.
More on the runoff election
Voters headed to the polls for the Texas primary election runoff to determine who will move on to the November general election.
Some key races on the ballot include the Republican U.S. Senate race between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General race between Mayes Middleton and Chip Roy, the Democratic race between Joe Jaworski and Nathan Johnson, the Harris County judge race on both the Republican and Democratic sides, and the Democratic race for U.S. House District 18 between Menefee and Al Green. Several other key local and state races are on the ballot.
This is a developing situation, and updates will be added to this article when we get them.
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